The brisk pace of soybean exports has prompted Washington to lower its forecast for US inventories of the oilseed at the end of 2009-10, although not by as much as analysts had expected.

Official statisticians also raised their forecast for US corn stocks, and global wheat stocks, by more than had been expected in their latest monthly crop supply and demand report, which was viewed as potentially poor for crop prices.

The US Department of Agriculture said that US soybean exports had set a record high in November noting that, including sales committed but not yet shipped, they had risen by almost 60% from a year before.

Below expectations

However, an increase of 15m bushels to 1.34bn bushels in the department's estimate of overall soybean exports for the year to August disappointed some analysts, who had expected a bigger revision.

The USDA trimmed its forecast for year-end stocks by a corresponding 15m-bushel to 255m bushels, higher than the 233m-bushel figure the market had forecast.

"This is slightly less of a cut than expected," Iowa broker US Commodities said.

'Little negative' 

Vic Lespinasse, analyst at GrainAnalyst.com, said that report was "a little negative" for all the main crops, with forecasts for US stocks at the end of 2009-10 higher for corn and wheat too.

The forecast for year-end wheat inventories was raised by 15m bushels to 900m bushels – three times the level two years ago – reflecting greater flour extraction rates by millers than had been expected.

On a global level, the forecast for 2009-10 wheat production was raised by 2.0m tonnes to 673.9m tonnes, putting it within 10m tonnes of last year's record crop.

Nonetheless, the differences to market opinion were not viewed as sufficiently significant to have a huge impact on prices, which opened mixed in Chicago.

March wheat was 0.75 cents lower at $5.34 ½ a bushel in early deals, with March corn down 1 cent at 382 ½ a bushel and January soybeans 2.75 cents higher at 10.31 ¼ a bushel.